Writing.com Content Rating : E

The Cave

         Jo and Danai were the only two shuffling around on the dance floor surrounded by swaying palms. The band was playing “A Sleepy Lagoon.” They were at a resort hotel on an island in the Andaman Sea which could indeed have been the inspiration for the song: a tropical moon was shining, their two hearts were in tune, and they were in lullaby land. The night air was fragrant with the scent of plumeria blossoms. In the background they could hear the plash of the waves breaking on the golden sands just a few yards away. The water was so pristine that in the daytime you could see tropical fish grazing on the dappled, undulating seabed.
         Suddenly a high piercing wail shattered the night’s calm and interrupted their idyll. The wail lasted several seconds and then was repeated at intervals. The band played on doggedly, but the couples at the tables quickly rose and hurried away. The two dancers froze in mid-step, Danai’s arm around Jo’s waist.
         A voice on the public address system crackled to life: “This is a tsunami warning. This is not a drill.”
         “Oh, my God,” Jo cried. “This can’t be happening.”
         “It’s okay.” Danai looked reassuringly into Jo’s clear blue eyes. “They learnt their lesson from the last tsunami.”
         “It’s a low level warning,” the PA continued. “Please make for the terrace at the back of the hotel. Hurry, but do not panic; there is sufficient time.”
         “Hear that?” Danai said. “Let’s get our gear first.”
         The waiters and waitresses were milling about, uncertain what to do. “Don’t wait around,” Danai called out to Thipa, their waitress. “Get to safety. Tell the others to hurry, too.”

         Jo and Danai had planned to trek to a fishing village on the other side of the island the next morning. They had loaded up their backpacks with supplies and flashlights. Now they returned to their room, changed into sneakers, and grabbed their bags. Then they joined the excited crowd clambering up the steep steps leading to a wide terrace.
         From the terrace Jo and Danai gazed over the rooftops at the dark, iridescent sea. Lights from fishing boats in the bay glimmered like fireflies. The terrace was packed with people sitting in semidarkness on benches and blankets spread out on the tiled floor. The place looked like a disorderly camping ground. There was hardly room to walk.
         Lampposts on the terrace provided a harsh light, attracting myriad flying insects. Three young children skipped passed them, laughing and shouting, shooed along by their mother.
         “Let’s not sit around waiting for the tsunami,” Jo said. “Let’s begin our trek now.”
          “You want to?”
         “Sure. There’s a bright moon. We won’t get lost if we keep to the trail.”
         “I’m game.” Danai realized that Jo still hadn’t quite recovered from the trauma of the 2004 tsunami which she had experienced at first hand.

         They picked their way through the crowd and continued up the narrow staircase leading from the terrace. The steps led to a footpath which cut through a spinney of plumerias and poinsettias. So far the going had been quite easy. But now the path became narrower and rougher with overhanging branches blocking out the moonlight. They switched on their flashlights.
         A little later Danai called out, “Hey! I think we’ve lost the trail.”
         “We can’t have lost it.”
         “Wait. The trail splits in two here.”
         “Great! Which one do we take?”
         “Let’s look at the compass. One goes due east; the other goes southeast.”
         “Perhaps we missed a signpost in the dark.”
         “Let’s take this trail due east. Should be the shortest way to the east coast.”
         “Shouldn’t we backtrack, look for a signpost?”
         “I’m sure this is the right way.”

         Some time later they heard a soft murmuring. It grew louder and finally became a roar as they went further along the trail. Then they emerged into a moonlit clearing. A huge sheet of cascading water sparkled in the moon’s glow forming a spectacular backdrop. Danai glanced up at the sky and saw Orion almost directly overhead. Suddenly a meteor streaked across the sky. It was a moment of ineffable wonder.
         They sat and rested for a while, listening to the roar of the waterfall and watching it cascading into a large rock pool.
         “What does namtok mean?” Jo asked.
         “Waterfall.”
         “Oh, so that’s what the woman was trying to tell me.”
         At last they roused themselves from their reverie and began searching for a path. They followed it until they were out of earshot of the tumbling water. A while later they heard voices and running footsteps approaching.
         “Hey, this is weird,” Jo whispered. “Who can they be?”
         “Beats me. Could be villagers coming to investigate the siren.”
         “Let’s get off the trail.”
         Before they could decide what to do, four men wearing black pajama trousers appeared, blocking their path. The men were as surprised to see the couple as Jo and Danai were to see them.
         “Where’re you going?” The man who spoke was tall and well-built. He raised his hand to shield his face from the light that Danai shone in his face. Danai could smell whiskey on his breath.
         “We heard the siren,” another said. He was short and compact, a Thai kick boxer’s build, and had a thin mustache. “Is it a tsunami?”
         “Going to the cave?” another young man asked. “We can guide you.”
         “Yes, it was a tsunami siren,” Danai said. “Don’t know if a tsunami will hit. What cave are you talking about?”
         “We’ll be your guides,” the young man repeated.
         “We’re not going to the cave.”
         “You got lost? We’ll guide you.”
         “We’re not going to the cave,” Danai repeated.
         The four men crowded around them. The boxer reached out and stroked Jo’s blonde hair, gold threads in the moonlight.
         “Hey, don’t touch her.” Danai knocked the man’s hand away. He then grabbed Jo’s hand and started to run. The men began shouting. Danai and Jo kept on running, hand in hand. Then the trail ended abruptly in a steep wall of rock. They saw a low, narrow opening, apparently the mouth of a cave. They hadn’t expected this, but there was no other way. They could hear the voices of their pursuers.

         “Let’s hide in the cave,” Danai said.
         “What was that all about?” Jo asked.
         “No time to explain now. I’ll crawl in first. Follow me.”
         They switched on their flashlights and entered the cave. They crawled through a short passageway and emerged into a large, domed chamber. The cave floor was strewn with rocks. In the center there was a clear pool of water teeming with eyeless fishes. They could see several passages leading from the main chamber. Carefully, they made their way toward one of these openings.
         “We’ll hide in here,” Danai said.
         “What if it’s a dead end?”
         “Don’t worry. They won’t come into the cave without any lights.”
         “What did they want?”
         “They weren’t in a friendly mood, that’s for sure.”
         “I’m scared. We might get lost in these passages.”
         “We won’t.”
         Danai unzipped his backpack and took out a handful of beer bottle caps and other bric-a-bracs.
         “We’ll use these to mark a trail,” he said. He smiled. Jo often kidded him for collecting such things. They moved deeper into the passageway and sat down. Danai leaned against the wall and put his arms around Jo. She was shivering. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s a bit musty in here but we’ll be okay.”
         “I was thinking of the previous tsunami,” she said.
         “Don’t talk about it.”
         “Do you think there’s been another one?”
         “I doubt it. They don’t hit twice in the same place that often.”
         Danai switched on his flashlight. Despite everything, Jo looked great in her jeans and black top. Her face and arms were like white jade against the dark background.
         “Look, I’ve got on a yellow sock and a black sock,” Danai said. They both laughed.

         “I was in the lobby of my hotel when the tsunami struck,” Jo began. “There was no warning. Thank God they’ve installed the sirens.”
         Jo had returned to Thailand to bury these sad memories. Now this had to happen.
         “Everything just got swept away. I was one of the lucky ones.”
         “Nothing’s going to happen to you now,” Danai said. “I promise.”
         They snuggled against each other and tried to doze off. Suddenly they heard muffled voices and a flickering light from the direction of the main chamber.
         “They must have lit a torch,” Danai said. They quickly got up and scrambled further into the narrow passageway. Several times it widened and then split in two. Danai carefully placed bottle caps at strategic places to mark their trail.
         “Have we gone far enough?” Jo asked.
         “Listen! Can you hear anything?”
         “I can hear a kind of moan. What is it?”
         “I’m not sure. Let’s keep going.”
          The noise got louder. “It’s the waterfall,” Danai said. “There must be another way out of the cave.”
         Suddenly the tunnel opened onto a ledge and they were soaked in spray. The roar of the water was deafening. They had emerged behind the waterfall.
         “Get back into the cave,” Danai shouted.
         “Now what?”
         “Let’s wait here until light. Then we’ll look for a way out behind the fall.”
         They found a place to hide. Neither could sleep much and at first light Danai went out alone onto the ledge. He soon came back completely soaked.
         “It’s a dead end,” he said.
         “So we have to backtrack?”
         “Look’s like it. Unless...”
         “What?”
         “We could jump.”
         “Into the pool?”
         “Yes.” They looked at each other.
         “I’m game.”
         “Right. We’ll leave our backpacks here.”

         They went out onto the ledge and peered over the side. They were about halfway to the top of the waterfall. The churning pool was only twenty feet below them.
         “Think you can do it?” Danai asked.
         Jo nodded.
         “All right then. Want me to go first?”
         “No, let me. I don’t want to be stranded here alone. As soon as I jump, you follow, okay?”
         “Swim underwater as far as you can before surfacing.”
         “See you on the other side.” They embraced.
         Jo closed her eyes and stood still for a minute, her arms stretched out. Then she inhaled and dived. Danai followed her immediately. They hit the surface simultaneously and swam underwater until they were clear of the cascade. They surfaced together and swam to the edge of the rock pool. Danai scrambled up the slippery slope and pulled Jo up.
         “That was great!” he said.
         “I was a bit scared,” Jo admitted. “I thought the weight of the water would push me to the bottom.”
         They were back in the clearing they had stopped at on their way to the cave.
         “Let’s keep going,” Danai said. “Our clothes will soon dry in this heat.”
         They retraced the path they had taken the night before and eventually found a signpost that pointed the way to the fishing village. Towards noon they stood on an escarpment overlooking the eastern shore. They could see the fishing village down below, with its thatch-roofed huts on bamboo stilts. To their surprise the bay was filled with white sails and motorboats from the resort hotels.

         It took them another hour to pick their way down the escarpment to the village. They recognized the captain of one of the boats.
         “There was no tsunami,” he told them. “The undersea earthquake off Sumatra measured 5.5; not enough to cause a tsunami.”
         “That’s a relief!” Danai said.
         “So you’re the two crazy tourists!”
         “What do you mean?”
         “Well, last night, four fishermen reported they’d found two tourists up in the hills. They thought you were lost and were trying to help you.”
          “Yeah, like hell. When will you be sailing back to the hotel?” Danai caught sight of two bicycles on the deck. “Hey! Don’t those Schwinns belong to the hotel manager?”
         “Yep. He insisted I take them on board. No way was he going to lose them.”
         “They’re classics,” Danai and Jo walked over to the Schwinns. He picked up the red one while Jo took the blue one.
         “Cool! Tell the manager we borrowed them. You know, rode back to the resort along the coast road.” Without waiting for a reply, Danai and Jo wheeled the bikes down the gangplank onto the jetty.
         “See you back at the hotel.” They waved to the captain and cycled away. “Okay, let’s see if they have any beer around here.”


WC: 2091

The Cave  (E) Entry in 48 Hour Short Story Contest. Adventure on an island in the Andaman Sea. #1212419 by Trirat